Broken
by NovemberRiddle
Summary: Ginny reflects on all the times she had dreamed of Tom Riddle. Really short one-shot.


**Broken**

Ginny's POV

I was eleven when our paths crossed for the first time. A stray black-lather book with initials imprinted in it, a naive girl and a charming demon hidden behind the pages, beginning of the never ending story. It was so easy for me to fall.  
>Back then, when I first came into possession of his diary, he was nothing more than an endless source of comforting words, elegantly written black lines in an old book. Next he became a close friend, a precious confidant, but my dreams were still free of his influence. He was without face or shape, he had no voice.<br>Not yet.

I don't remember when I started dreaming of the invisible, formless boy, but I do remember how different he always looked. The kindness in his eyes and pleasant smiles were the only constants in my dreams of him; everything else was ever-changing. His eyes would be blue one night, than black the next. His hair would be wavy and black, than long and brown. But he was always handsome, and more importantly, he was always there.

How perfect he was, how nice to me. Of course I was willing to believe his every word, I was in love with him without even realizing it. Even when in fear and desperation I threw away his diary, I couldn't get rid of him. He kept visiting my dreams as he would for years to come. How naive I was to think I can escape him. How secretly grateful that Harry and Ron had found the diary, that I had a reason to take him back.

I remember the terror I felt as I snapped out of trance only to find myself in a huge, unfamiliar chamber. Just before the darkness took over I saw him. He was beautiful, an angel, his pale face clashing with his jet-black hair and impossibly dark eyes, but his eyes were filled with cruelty not kindness, his full lips twisted in an amused smirk as he watched me fall. I heard him say how he would enjoy watching me slowly drift away. Pain and fear sized my hearth as I lost consciousness.

When I finally opened my eyes he was gone.

Relief flooded my exhausted body as I realized that I am indeed still alive, than happiness as my eyes landed on Harry. He had been the one who saved the time, I was still unaware of just how much I depended on Tom Riddle, how much influence he had over me; unable to see what losing my dear confidant meant.

At first I had nightmares filled with snakes and cold laughter, terrors of dying in that cold wet chamber. At first I was happy he was gone, but my happiness was short lived. Loneliness in a tricky thing and I soon started missing him, more so each passing day.I looked for him in my dreams, hoping to find him again, running after his shadow, calling his name, begging him to come back. I needed him.

I started wishing Harry had been killed in the chamber so Tom would have survived. I wished I had died so he could have lived on. I was desperate for a friend who could understand me like he did, for someone I can could tell all my secrets to, all my problems, everything. However, above all else, I wanted someone to whom I can talk about him, the handsome devil who I believed to be an angel. Those endless black eyes... I missed him, the beautiful monster I was ready to die for.

I can't recall when the last time I dreamed of him was, my dreams are rare now. I just know that I was still chasing after him, that I still tried to find him in that magnificent and revolting chamber his ancestor had built. He was never there.  
>Not until the night of Voldemort's rebirth. That night for the first time Tom Riddle was waiting for me. Lonely and proud presence in that huge room, standing there in front of the Salazar Slytherin's statue in thought.<p>

Fear sized me when I saw him there, fear and anticipation. He had been waiting for me and I could see his eyes flash a bloody-red color in pleasure once he notice horror written all over my face. My hearth fluttered in pleasure and terror at the sight.

'Ginerva' he greeted in that soft voice I had heard only once before but still remember.

I just stared.

'No reason to be afraid' he teased, 'we are friends aren't we?'

I stayed silent.

'How rude. Why chase me? Why call after me if you are only going to stand there like a stupid little lamb?' he asked, 'Or did you believe I was really dead, my darling? There is no harm in missing a ghostly memory, is there? Silly girl, you should know better that. I, Lord Voldemort -the greatest wizard of them all- can't be killed that easily. My dear, I am immortal and I will stay here, forever.'

This wasn't my Tom, this wasn't the boy I had been looking for. I wanted him gone, but he stayed. He stared hunting my other night I would return to that Chamber with those hideous snakes watching me, their eyes shining despite the darkness. My steps would ring through the empty space and as if I was on some invisible rope his presence would always drag me closer. He was a puppeteer and he was holding my strings.

He would mock me, his dark eyes laughing as I tried to defend myself. Slowly but surely, he was becoming more real, I could no longer claim that he was just a fraction of my imagination, fraction of my twisted mind. Somehow he was simply there, a part of me and still so undeniably himself.

Than the war started and he disappeared, leaving me to suffer alone as night after night terrors of death, blood and torture invaded my mind. He was still somewhere in there, silently watching as I screamed in my dreams, enjoying my pain. I just never saw him. I am still not sure weather I am grateful or bitter that he never showed himself.

When Voldemort fell in the Great Hall I like everyone else celebrated the end of the war and cried for the people I've lost. My brother was dead. Many of my friends were dead as well. Tom Riddle however wasn't.

He choose that night to come back. He ignored my shuttered repetition that he is really, truly dead, that he can't be there (that I can't be there) as he casually walked around the Chamber of Secrets as he had done many times before, eyes on the grotesque statues. I closed my eyes begging for him to disappear; but when I opened them he was still there, watching me with interest, like he would watch a rat in his sick experiment.

'You are dead,' I repeated in a whisper, desperately for a hundredth time that night.

'I am immortal' he responded calmly, reminding me of what he thought was a simple fact.

'No. Harry killed you.'

'Than why am I still here?'

'You are just a part of my imagination, you will disappear.'

'Do you really believe that?' he asked curiously, he didn't seem worried.

'Yes!' I yelled trying to convince both him and myself. My voice echoed, but it did nothing to dispel my fears.

He just smirked at me, 'If you say so.'

And he walked away, just like that, like he had no worry in this world. I stood there, still an eleven-year old girl watching him disappear, pleading that he never comes back, while the decorative snakes laugh at my nativity, taunting the little lamb whose time of slaughter was coming closer.

I woke up crying. He would never let me go. I was his entertainment, the main attraction of his twisted play.

Tom Riddle kept appearing over the years, taking whatever he wanted, taking me, driving me into insanity, slowly... patiently waiting for a perfect moment to break me. I wouldn't allow him, I fought. I will not be his last victim, I will not let him hurt Harry like that.

He was there on my wedding night, he was there when I gave birth to my children, he was there to take me after I made love to times, he would taunt me, tell me how he had been feeling lonely lately, how I should come to the chamber more often - as if there were many nights I wasn't dreaming of him. It was expected that he would be there even as I am about to die.

'I am leaving this world,' I told him, happy to finally be free. Free of him and his manipulations, of hurt and pain and secrets and betray. Free of everything.

'So?' he asked bored.

'You'll die with me.'

'We shall see,' he was unconcerned. Tom no longer cared for this game of his, his voice was monotonous and slow.

'You didn't win,' I added vengefully, 'You couldn't brake me. The little lamb you always laughed at prevailed.'

At that he finally looked at me, a lazy grin spread across his beautiful face, 'Ginerva, please. I broke you a long time ago, in many different ways. I destroyed both your reality and your illusions years back. The only reason I lingered this long around here was too keep enjoying my victory. Sometimes, a broken toy is more entertaining that a new one. But I believe it is time for me to leave. You shell be enjoying the nothingness of death alone.'

He started walking away and I screamed, 'I am not broken!'

His laughter was cold and piercing right trough my soul, 'Many consider insanity to be a broken mind, Ginerva. Farewell.'

He disappeared and I crashed on the wet floor, no longer capable of refusing to admit defeat as tears fell from my eyes. Yes, I was insane, unstable in many ways. in need of a cold killer to keep me company. I've been that way for so long that I haven't even noticed how twisted that was.

I am indeed broken.


End file.
